From a Prison Cell to the Red Carpet

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Maria Alekhina (in glasses) and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ms. Tolokonnikova’s husband, Pyotr Verzilov, at the PEN gala at the American Museum of Natural History this month.CreditYana Paskova for The New York Times

It’s a drizzly Friday in Manhattan, and a group of art publicists is perched outside an auditorium at the Frieze Art Fair, trying to wrangle two founding members of the protest group Pussy Riot into a waiting car.

Maria Alekhina is present, in thick-rimmed glasses and unruly blond curls, a pink clutch (a gift from a fan) underneath her arm. The husband of Nadya (also known as Nadezhda) Tolokonnikova is chatting with a reporter about taking surfing lessons on a trip to Los Angeles. The group’s interpreter is there, too.

But Ms. Tolokonnikova has wandered off, perhaps surveying the exhibits — part of the art show where she and Ms. Alekhina, who goes by Masha, have just finished a talk.

She re-emerges moments later, with a security-guard escort and a wry smile. Her T-shirt is emblazoned with the masked face of Subcomandante Marcos, the Mexican guerrilla fighter.

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Ms. Alekhina, left, and Ms. Tolokonnikova at an Amnesty International concert in February in Brooklyn.CreditTheo Wargo/Getty Images for Cbgb

For Ms. Tolokonnikova, 24, and Ms. Alekhina, 25, the most recognizable members of the Russian feminist art collective Pussy Riot, being herded (or at times, it seems, paraded) has become par for the course. The two have been on the road since 6 a.m., traveling from Rikers Island — nearly visible across the water — to the high-art aficionados here on Randalls Island, where they were interviewed on stage by David Remnick, The New Yorker editor.

It’s been barely five months since the women were released from a Russian prison, charged with “hooliganism” for staging an anti-Putin protest inside an Orthodox church. Along with another member of the collective who was released earlier, they served 16 months for the act, after a trial that some described as a witch hunt. While in prison, Ms. Tolokonnikova was missing for a number of weeks (she was later found at a Siberian hospital) and Ms. Alekhina has said she had to endure forced gynecological exams.

Since then, they’ve formed a nonprofit, Zona Prava, which means Zone of Rights, to bring attention to prison conditions and to advocate for inmates all over the world. They’ve traveled to Singapore, Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam and Norway, and have spoken before the European Parliament and United States lawmakers. They’ve also become near-ubiquitous faces in the United States, fringe protesters turned pop icons, complete with adoring fans.

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With Lucy Parks of Occupy Wall Street after visiting Cecily McMillan at Rikers Island.CreditKirsten Luce for The New York Times

In April, they were on a panel at Lincoln Center for Tina Brown’s Women in the World summit, in conversation with Charlie Rose about Russian prison reform. They attended the black-tie gala for the PEN Awards, a fund-raiser for the literary human-rights organization, underneath the giant blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History (taking the stage after Toni Morrison and Salman Rushdie). They appeared on stage with Madonna and recently met the cast of “House of Cards.”

At the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington earlier this month, they posed for step-and-repeat photos at the Vanity Fair party, prompting one Ukraine-based journalist to joke on Twitter: “Red carpeting their way to Putin’s ouster.”

You would think the women might want a break. And yet they won’t get one today. Frieze organizers had to go to extreme lengths to book them. The talk’s Berlin-based co-curator, Christy Lange, first reached out to an artist friend in London, who had recently been to Moscow, where he met someone who knew the husband of one of the women, who put him in touch with a journalist, who provided an email that ultimately went to Pyotr Verzilov, Ms. Tolokonnikova’s husband and sometime translator. After a lengthy exchange, Mr. Verzilov responded: “We are thinking to confirm to this.” Ms. Lange could only hope it meant they really were confirming.

The women arrived as hoped, but late. They had come straight from Rikers Island, where they had spent the day with Cecily McMillan, the 25-year-old activist sentenced to 90 days in prison and five years’ probation after being convicted of assaulting a police officer at an Occupy Wall Street protest. They had been running on three hours’ sleep, but Ms. McMillan “gave us this jolt of energy,” Ms. Tolokonnikova said in an interview after the pair’s appearance. On stage with Mr. Remnick, the women’s talk spanned Russian conceptualism, activism as art as well as political censorship and prison conditions.

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Ms. Alekhina, left, and Ms. Tolokonnikova at the Women in the World Summit at Lincoln Center in April.CreditJemal Countess/Getty Images

The contrast was not uncharacteristic of daily life in the face of their newfound fame. In Russia, the women, who have young children, must travel with bodyguards. They say their phones are being tapped. They have been attacked while dining in public. And while Ms. Tolokonnikova and Ms. Alekhina maintain that anyone can be a part of the collective, other members have proclaimed that the women are no longer affiliated with the group.

And yet here, they are the unmistakable face of the Pussy Riot “brand,” if you can call it that. Their trademark neon balaclavas were featured in the movie “Spring Breakers”; their logo has been screen-printed on shirts and sold on Amazon.

If the women wanted, they could most likely become rich from speaking gigs and tours. They certainly have the fan base. But that is not their goal. “What we do is political art,” Ms. Alekhina said.

They are reluctant even to take on the voice of cultural critics. In Los Angeles, when chased down by TMZ for their opinions on a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency, their reply was curt: “This question is not for us to answer.” They responded similarly to The Wall Street Journal when asked if they approved of Miley Cyrus, and to Mr. Remnick, when he asked about their feelings on United States policy toward Russia.

“We get absolutely no kick out of status,” Ms. Tolokonnikova said after her talk at Frieze. She laughed and looked at Ms. Alekhina, who was plucking the white pith off an orange. “It’s almost like a mental disorder that we have.”

Ms. Alekhina looked up. “To be perfectly honest, we got much more inspiration from Rikers,” she said.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page E7 of the New York edition with the headline: From a Prison Cell to the Red Carpet. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe